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WHY AMERICA NEEDS THE CIA**

Without the CIA, who will supply us with disinformation?

Switzerland, 1943—future CIA founding director Allen Dulles begins protecting and hiring thousands of Nazi war criminals as US spies and operatives in Europe and Latin America—including Reinhard Gehlen (Hitler’s intelligence chief), Klaus Barbie ("the Butcher of Lyon"), and Otto Skorzeny (Hitler’s chief bodyguard)—and soon uses them to persuade the US administration that the Soviet Union plans an imminent attack on the West. Good for German neo-Nazis; good for the CIA/military budget; bad for US democracy.—Covert Action, Fall 1990.

Vietnam, 1964—the CIA and related agencies help fabricate a phony Vietnamese attack in the Gulf of Tonkin off North Vietnam, turning Congress and the public towards a war devastating for both southeast Asia and the US.—US News & World Report, 7/23/84.

Prominent US media owners and journalists who have knowingly worked for the CIA include William Paley (CBS), Arthur Sulzberger (NY Times), Henry Luce (Time/Life), William Buckley (National Review), Ben Bradlee (Washington Post), and hundreds of others.—Carl Bernstein, "The CIA and the Media", Rolling Stone, 10/20/77.

1975—Under pressure from his right, President Ford authorizes CIA director George Bush to create "Team B", charged with giving a "second opinion" after CIA analysts report on major weaknesses in the Soviet military. Team B’s trumped-up rewriting of Soviet capabilities is later swallowed whole by President Reagan, who jacks up the Pentagon budget, promotes the Team B members, and solidifies a CIA woefully unprepared to anticipate the collapse of the Soviet Union.—Mark Perry, The Last Days of the CIA.

"[T]he general effect of Cold War extremism was to delay rather than hasten the great change that overtook the Soviet Union."— George Kennan, International Herald Tribune, 10/29/92.

Without the CIA, who will overthrow elected leaders and install dictators?

Guatemala, 1954—CIA overthrows freely-elected pro-capitalist president Arbenz, installs General Armas, and continues supporting the military dictatorship over the next 40 years while it murders over 200,000 civilians.

Zaire, 1960—CIA helps overthrow popular president Lumumba, and helps install kleptocratic General Mobutu.

Similar results in the Dominican Republic (1963, out with anti-Communist Bosch), Indonesia (1965, out with nonaligned Sukarno, in with General Suharto, genocidal murderer in Indonesia and East Timor), Greece (1967, preferring six years of martial law to a nationalist but non-Communist Andreas Papandreou), Chile (1973, out with elected president Salvador Allende, in with ferocious General Pinochet and a hoard of ex-Nazis).

Without the CIA, who will generate anti-US bitterness around the globe?

Iran, 1953—CIA overthrows freely-elected prime minister Mossadegh, installs the Shah, and trains the "security" force SAVAK into the worst human rights violator on the planet (Amnesty International, 1976), leading to popular support for the Ayatollah Khomeini’s 1979 revolution. This is counted as one of the CIA’s biggest successes.

Cambodia, 1970—after fifteen years of trying, the CIA deposes popular nonaligned leader Prince Sihanouk, imposes Lon Nol, who commits Cambodian troops to fighting Vietnam, leading to war in Cambodia (by CIA estimates, 1969-1975 US bombing kills 600,000 people and a million more by famine), and turning an insignificant cult into the powerful Khmer Rouge. Despite Pol Pot’s murderous ways in the late 70s, ended by a Vietnamese invasion, and despite his avowed anti-capitalism, the CIA supports him through the 80s.

THE CIA IS FUNDAMENTALLY ANTI-DEMOCRATIC, BOTH AT HOME AND ABROAD; IT’S TIME WE ABOLISH IT.

**Where unattributed, evidence for the claims in this document is in William Blum’s Killing Hope, and the extensive references therein. For a quick intro, try The CIA’s Greatest Hits by Mark Zepezauer (source of the liberty cartoon--the CIA self-investigation cartoon is from Tom Tomorrow's This Modern World). On the Web,

www.worldmedia.com/caq. This flyer has been prepared by University of Michigan professor Eric Lormand (lormand@umich.edu) and is distributed in cooperation with members of the Ann Arbor Interfaith Council for Peace and Justice.